Comparing In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Thomas Jefferson once said, “Blacks could deliver themselves of spontaneous bursts of emotion, but were incapable of the intellect and concentration that great art requires.” (Cook, Tatum, 2010). It is widely believed that people of African descent could not read poetry or understand art, let alone create them. Both Alice Walker and Patricia Smith are two great examples of how far, not only as African American have come, but also as African American Women. Whether white, black, or brown we all want to fit in. That is why I chose Alice Walker’s short story, “The Welcome Table” and Patricia Smith’s poem, “What It’s Like to Be a Black Girl.” They both have similar, yet different of setting a tone, imagery, symbolism, and point of views of how

Alice Walker and Maya Angelou are both African American females whose literate has influenced both many African Americans .Beauty When The Other Dancer Is The Self by Alice Walker is a narrative that highlights the key events from the life of the author. These events had a great impact on her. She transitioned from a proud young girl to a girl with low self-esteem person and how she coped with life. Graduation by Maya Angelou is an essay which the authors share with the audience about her eighth-grade graduation. She shares the steps and preparations that were taken for the ceremony. Unfortunately for Maya, her day went on a festive occasion to a sad day because of a speech presented by a guest speaker. Much like Alice Walkers Beauty When The Other Dancer Is the Self and Maya Angelou's Graduation the main characters are both young African American female living in the Southern States during the Segregation era. A time when African American and other people of color were oppressed by Caucasians.While the two essay is about two separate people who experience different challenges and experiences in their life both essays are very similar.

Alice Walker, famed author and civil rights activist, was born to sharecropper parents in Eatonville, Georgia in February of 1944. Alice was the youngest daughter of sharecroppers; her mother also worked as a maid to help support her eight children. At a young age, an incident with her older brothers seriously damaged her eye when her brother Curtis accidentally shot Walker in the eye with a BB gun while playing “cowboys and Indians.” To avoid getting into trouble with their parents, Walker’s frightened brothers made up a story and convinced naive Alice to go along with it. The result was Walker lost the sight in her right eye. A disfiguring white scar developed. Walker became very self-conscious of this mark. This incident molded her early years and caused her to largely withdraw from the world around her. She felt ugly and disfigured, so she found solace in reading and writing poetry. This incident and her modest family roots contributed to her writing style exposed in later works.

Alice Walker usually puts herself into characters that she writes about in her stories. However, you don’t understand this unless you know about her. Staring with this let us find out about who she is and where she came from. When recounting the life of Alice Walker, you find out that she was born to sharecroppers in Eatonton, Georgia in 1944 and was the baby of eight children. She lost one of her eyes when her brother shot her with a BB gun by accident. She was valedictorian of her class in high school and with that and receiving a scholarship; she went to Spelman, a college for black women, in Atlanta. She then transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in New York and during her time there went Africa as an exchange

In an excerpt from her novel I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings called “Graduation,” Maya Angelou narrates the anticipation surrounding graduation in her small town of Stamps, Alabama. Angelou effectively contrives noteworthy differences between paragraphs 1 through 5 and 6 through 10 through the use of emotional and descriptive diction, powerfully bold comparisons, and a shift in perspective in order to instill pride and dignity in Angelou and her race despite the era’s highlighted social injustices which she endures.

Alice Malsenior Walker was born on February 9, 1944, in the town of Ward Chapel in Eatonton, Georgia. She was the youngest of eight children and her parents were sharecroppers. When Alice was about 8 years old, she was playing cowboys and Indians with her older brothers Curtis and Bobby and was accidentally shot in the right eye with a pellet from a BB Gun. From this injury, whitish scar tissue formed in the right eye and she became self-conscious of this mark. Because of her self-consciousness, she withdrew from the world and people and instead found a safe place in reading and writing poetry. But when she was fourteen, her older brother William gave her the needed resources and encouragement so that she could undergo eye surgery. Now, there’s a tiny blue sphere where she got shot. Alice lived in the racially segregated part of the south, so naturally she went to an all black school. Alice attended elementary and middle school at East Putnam Consolidated, which was established in 1948 by her father, Willie Lee Walker. Because of the area she lived in, she attended the only high school open to blacks in Eatonton,

Despite the strong presence of the beautiful, powerful, black women in the media, such as Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, and Beyoncé Knowles, African American females have been deemed unattractive in society’s eyes. These notions did not develop overnight, but remain as obstacles birthed from slavery. These stereotypes keep the black female incarcerated under the belief that they are not beautiful. However, black women have fought and are fighting these harmful perceptions in many different ways. My project will focus on two artists in particular, Maya Angelou and Kara Walker. I will look at three poems of Maya Angelou, Phenomenal Women, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and Still I Rise while examining

Alice Walker was born February 9, 1944, in Eaton Georgia. The youngest of eight, Walker was born into a family of sharecroppers and experienced years of poverty. At four years old, young walker enrolled in first grade and by eight, began exploring and cultivating her writing skills. The same year, Walker suffered a serious injury after taking a BB pellet to the eye while playing with her brothers. The injury resulted in white scar tissue around the eye, which caused the child’s anxiety and low self-esteem. Walker became a recluse, retreating to the confines of her home and mind, and found solace in literature. After reconstructive surgery, Walker regained self-esteem. Upon her reemergence to the world, the teen was greeted with

As an African- American novelist, short–story writer, essayist, poet, critic, and editor, Alice Walker’s plethora of literary works examines many aspects of African American life as well as historical issues that are further developed by Walker’s unique point of view. Writers like Alice Walker make it possible to bring words and emotions to voices and events that are often silenced. Far from the traditional image of the artist, she has sought what amounts to a personal relationship with her readers. She has also taken positions of passionate advocacy, most notably in her campaign against ritual genital mutilation of young women, a practice still institutionalized in many parts of the world, as well as

In Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, important aspects of the African American women’s experience in America in the early/mid. 1900’s are discussed such as the physical abuse and emotional abuse they endured and their social standing in society. In both novels you are able to witness the anguish and persecution that these women had to undergo. Maya from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Celie from The Color Purple are the main characters and we see that they are both differentiated against during their journeys of life. Men in their lives take advantage of both women and they are used for sexual pleasure, and as slaves. They are not treated fairly as they should be and people in their

Born in provincial Eatonton, Georgia, on February 9, 1944, Alice Walker is one of the most adored African-American writers working today. Alice is one of the youngest children out of her eight siblings. At the time where African-American were belittled by socioeconomic, her mother worked as a maid in order to help support the family’s eight children. Furthermore, at the time Alice was 8 eight years old, she suffered a severe incident regarding with her being shot in the right eye with a BB pellet while playing with two of her brothers. Consequently, requiring surgery thus leaving a whitish scar tissue formed in her damaged eye. Prior to the incident, Walker was teased by her appearance and became self-conscious throughout her childhood. Living in the racially divided South, Walker attended segregated schools and was merited the highest accolade in high school being valedictorian of her class. With the financial support of scholarships, she was granted to attend Spelman College in Atlanta. However, received another scholarship thus shifting to Sarah Lawrence College in New York. While at Sarah Lawrence, Walker visited Africa as one of the chosen few young black students to attend the prestigious school as part of a study-abroad

     Alice Walker is an African American essayist, novelist and poet. She is described as a “black feminist.”(Ten on Ten) Alice Walker tries to incorporate the concepts of her heritage that are absent into her essays; such things as how women should be independent and find their special talent or art to make their life better. Throughout Walker’s essay entitled “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens,” I determined there were three factors that aided Walker gain the concepts of her heritage which are through artistic ability, her foremothers and artistic models.

Maya Angelou and Alice Walker are two well-known contemporary African- American writers. Although both women are from different generations they share some of the same qualities and experiences. Both women used their past experiences of tragedy and hardship as a stepping stool for growth by turning that pain into what now are famous stories and poems. For most writers, majority of their work stem from their own experiences, and for both Alice and Maya a great deal of their works regarded the dilemmas many African American people faced during that time such as prejudice and discrimination.

Maya Angelou uses background information to manipulate the reader’s emotions. She does this first by telling the story in chronological order. Once the order is established, the reader starts to understand where Angelou is coming from. The other way that she manipulates emotions is by slowly changing the tone throughout the novel. When these factors are put together, they are meant to create sympathy from the reader. A sense of sadness that the black community faced during the 1940’s.

     Like it was previously stated, the author is primarily targeting black women to encourage them to appreciate what their female ancestors suffered through to keep their heritage and spirit alive. However, Walker may have also had the intent to inform other audiences what it was like to be an African American woman in history. To accomplish her aims, she used certain types of style and tone that were very effective. Her stylistic approach was the use of many different examples. She tells the heartbreaking tale of little Phillis Wheatley, a “sickly, frail black girl” who was taken from her home as a small child to live and die as a slave in America. She includes a short passage written by poet Jean Toomer, in which he speaks to a black prostitute who falls asleep while he encourages her to express her artistic spirituality in a different way. She describes why these oppressed black women were named “Saints,” and at the conclusion of her essay, she uses her own mother as an example, and her own questions about her mother’s ability to keep her creative spirit alive throughout her